


A Quiet Night

by misha906 (BoopPhysics)



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 00:25:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18789268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoopPhysics/pseuds/misha906
Summary: Emma gets a visitor one day.





	A Quiet Night

There was a knock on the door.

There was one every day. Every day, a new doctor would come and knock on the door. Usually Emma didn’t respond, preferring to turn away, face the wall, and pretend the she didn’t hear the knocking. Most days it stopped after a minute. This time the knocking didn’t.

“Hey, I know you’re in there, can you open the door?” The voice was different than most of the others that asked. It was young, female, and whiny. Emma shuffled around under her covers, turning to face the wall.

“I mean it, don’t ignore me!” The voice continued to cry insistently. Emma put her hands over her ears. If she just ignored it it’ll just go away. If she just ignored it then she won’t have to feel bad. If she just ignored it then the sweet embrace of unconsciousness would take her again. So Emma ignored it, and waited.

And waited as the knocking continued.

And waited as the voice behind the door got louder and more indignant.

And waited all the way up until it stopped.

Emma sighed in relief under the covers. Good, another one gone. She could go back to sleep now.

Then she heard music playing in the back of her mind.

It was soft, almost unnoticeable, a soft, quiet tune that swept through her mind with ringing bells and lilting strings. The tune was simple yet captivating, like a long forgotten childhood lullaby, singing gentle promises of warmth and love. Slowly, Emma felt the drudgery of the last week slide away from her mind. Slowly, she found the energy to sit up in bed. Slowly, she turned to look at the door. The knocking began again.

“Alright, you little punk, you ready to let me in yet?” The voice asked.

Emma stood up. Well, what was the harm in letting the voice in? She walked to the door and unlocked the thing.

There was a girl on the other side.

In Emma’s estimation, she was dressed like a hooker. A thin, pink top that barely reached her navel, along with a pair of denim shorts that barely reached the middle of her thighs, paired with a pair of black leather boots. She had a streak of red running through her black hair, and a pair of earbuds wrapped around an arm. The girl in the door grinned.

“Finally, I’ve been waiting forever,” she said, striding into the room and tracking dirt all over the pristine carpeting. Emma didn’t notice, instead closing the door after her. The girl kicked away some of the dirty clothes lying on the floor, and flopped down onto Emma’s bed. Emma dragged a chair over and sat.

The girl turned to look at her, and Emma felt the music stop. Emma felt the lethargy return. Emma realized she didn’t know who this girl was. Emma began to panic.

“Stop it, stop it. God you’re so loud. If you really need to know, my name’s Cherie. I’m your new therapist,” the girl said.

“...Therapist?” Emma asked. She shrunk into herself, grabbing at her sleeves. A therapist? She didn’t need a therapist. She just needed some time alone, that was all, “I don’t...I don’t need a therapist.”

“Then why’d you open the door?”

Emma didn’t respond. She herself didn’t know why she opened the door.

“Lemme tell you why, mon cheri, it’s because you probably have some problems, and you need someone to talk to you about them,” Cherie said, standing up and bopping Emma on the nose, “So here I am.”

“Now tell me,” Cherie continued, strolling around Emma’s room, poking at the odd article of discarded clothing or torn poster, “What’s the problem that’s got your head crying like that? Boy troubles? School? Your parents beating you?”

“What? No! Not that,” Emma said. An image of the alley flashed through her mind, and she ducked her head, “Nothing like that.”

Cherie moved on to Emma’s vanity, “So what is it? Girl troubles? Lack of school? You sister beating you? C’mon, I don’t want to guess.”

The tune started in Emma’s mind again, soothing, relaxing, and just a tad bit insistent. Her arms fell to her side and she leaned back into the chair.

“There...there was...we were in the car…”

And so Emma recounted the story, the car, the crash, the gangbangers, all of it. At the end of it, Emma felt tears in her eyes and snot in her nose. Cherie poked her head out of Emma’s closet.

“Mm, tough shit,” she said, examining a bright red top. She shouldered a bag that Emma didn’t notice her bringing in and sat on the bed again, facing her. The brunette’s face looked bored.

“Shouldn’t..shouldn’t you be writing some of that down or something?” Emma asked, “ That’s what therapists do, right? I’ve seen it on TV.”

“Hmm? Oh, nah, it’s fine, got it all in my head,” Cherie tapped a finger against her cheek. She shouldered her bag and headed to the door.

“All right, here’s what we’re gonna do, okay? Your stupid head is too damn loud, and it keeps me up at night, so,” Cherie vaguely gestured in Emma’s direction with a finger. The song in her head got louder. Exponentially louder. It crescendoed all the way up until Emma thought her eardrums would rupture, and filled her with joy, and happiness, and all the things she’d forgotten. For the first time in weeks, Emma felt a smile tear across her face. She leaned back in the chair, basking in the music.

“That better?” Cherie asked, halfway out the door. Emma grinned and nodded, head lolling about in a daze. Cherie smiled, “Good, so I’ll probably see you again whenever that wears off. Don’t get too loud anymore, okay?”

“...Okay,” Emma whispered. She wanted to jump up and down, she wanted to run around the house and yell, she wanted to call Taylor and begin telling her how happy she was. She got up and walked out her room.

“Cool, I’ll see you later,” Cherie said.

\--

That night Cherie laid out all the knicknacks she took from the Barnes’s house. Bits of jewelry, a fancy watch, and a few sets of clothes were spread out over a desk she was borrowing from some guy or another. No cash, though, that was too bad. But at least she could sleep at nights now, no more obnoxious jazz that sounded all across the city and kept her up the whole night. She thumbed through Emma’s phone, looking for a good song to listen to. Not much variety, mostly pop and hip hop. Cherie tapped play on a recognizable top fifty and slid her earbuds in. A catchy beat began to hum in her ears. A silence hummed in her mind.

She sank into the song.

Bliss.


End file.
